Publishing Talks Interviews Derek Newton/Verify My Writing

Publishing Talks started as a series of conversations I had with book industry professionals and others involved in media and technology, talking about the future of publishing, books, and culture. It was great fun discussing the evolution of publishing in the context of technology, culture, and economics.

More recently, I’ve also had conversations with a variety of editors, publishers and others who have been innovators and leaders in independent publishing and bookselling in the past and into the present.

These conversations have been inspirational to me. I have had the pleasure of speaking with visionaries and entrepreneurs, editors, publishers, and others who have influenced and changed contemporary literature and culture. I’ve also had the opportunity to speak with a number of friends and colleagues in the book business about their work.

I really enjoy these opportunities to learn about the boundless creativity that motivates so many in the book business. I was approached recently by a PR firm who wanted me to talk to edtech writer Derek Newton about a new project he has undertaken. While my first reaction was to ignore what seemed to be yet another “pitch,” when I read further about the project, my interest was piqued and I decided I should talk to Derek to find out more about his ideas.

Derek Newton has written extensively about education and technology, including contributions to the Atlantic, Washington Post, USA Today, Money Magazine and many others. He’s also a contributing writer at Forbes and founder of the new and very interesting project that we talked about in this episode, Verify My Writing.

Verify My Writing allows writers to get a verified certification that their work is real, authentic, and human. In short, this enables them to certify that their work was not created by AI. The certification can help with submissions and pitches. Verify My Writing also certifies books and articles that have already been published with a “Human-Written” hallmark. And as Derek and I discussed, there other applications for this sort of certification as well. While writers certainly have self-interest in proving to magazines and publishers that their work is original, it seems to me that publishers will also want to verify for themselves when they receive submissions that the work they are reading is wholly or at least substantially original.

Book publishers and magazines with limited editorial resources are now dealing with a tsunami of submissions, with no practical way to determine the originality of the work they are considering for publication.

Given how good some AI-assisted writing can be, and how often AI is inaccurate (or completely wrong), there’s no question that all of us as readers will also appreciate knowing whether what we are reading online is human or machine written. This sort of validation may become a requirement in the not too distant future.

I found this conversation to be stimulating and thought provoking. Derek’s Verify My Writing seems interesting, and compelling in that it comes from a writer whose work experience inspired it.  I hope you find this conversation as stimulating as I did.

Here’s the Verify My Writing website.

If you want to learn more, contact Derek directly: DNewton@VerifyMyWriting.com

 

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Helen Sheehy: Just Willa (a novel)

Just Willa (a novel)—Helen Sheehy—Cave Hollow Press—978-2-7342678-3-9—paperback—428 pages—$21.95—April 13, 2025—ebook versions available at varying lower prices

As many Writerscast listeners know, I only interview writers about books I like and enjoyed reading enough to want to share with my listeners. So every episode of this podcast does represent a certain “best of” approach to my reading, since you will never hear about the books I did not love, or could not bring myself to finish.

From among those many books I like, Helen Sheehy’s Just Willa is a special one – this is a flat out just a wonderful novel. It focuses entirely on the story of one woman and her family, Willa Hardesty, and her difficult farm life in dusty, dry Oklahoma. Her story follows seven decades of one woman’s life, a twentieth century family chronicle that focuses on the small struggles of daily life, a difficult husband, the challenges of raising children and the heartbreak that goes with a large family.

Willa is tough because her world requires her to be tough. She is the daughter of a homesteader who somehow manages to be a single mother in an era that provides almost no support, then marries a bootlegging cowboy who is never honest with her. Her seemingly “small” life is really a world that is far greater than it seems, and she lives it with indomitable strength despite all her hardships and struggles to understand who she really is.

Like most great fiction, we come to realize that this novel is entirely true.

I really enjoyed speaking with Helen about her book, her writing process, and her past work as a biographer. I think you will enjoy this conversation, and I hope it might spur you to read Just Willa yourself, and because she is a really fine writer, and this book is autobiographical fiction, perhaps you will be interested in reading her biographies as well.

Helen Sheehy grew up on farms in Oklahoma and Kansas, although she’s lived in Connecticut most of her life. She’s been a dramaturg at Hartford Stage Company and written biographies of theatre pioneers; Margo Jones, Eva Le Gallienne, and Eleonora Duse.

Sheehy taught theatre and English in high schools in Kansas and Connecticut, which was the basis of her first book, a textbook titled All About Theatre. She was Adjunct Professor of Theatre at Southern Connecticut State University for over twenty years. Sheehy has also taught acting and improvisation to inmates in a maximum security prison in Connecticut.

She lives in Hamden, Connecticut. Just Willa is her first novel.

“Helen Sheehy’s masterful prose immerses you in Willa Hardesty’s world with such rich detail and emotional depth that you feel the dust of the Oklahoma plains and the quiet strength it takes to hold a family together. It’s a powerful reminder that even the women who shape our lives can hold truths we only come to understand with time. This book is for anyone who has ever known their mother—or thought they did.”—Michael Sucsy, Emmy-winning writer/director of Grey Gardens

Author website.
Buy the book on Bookshop.org

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